Word: optional
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Until Senate Majority Harry Reid decided to scrap a government-run insurance plan in order to get the 60 votes needed to pass health care reform legislation, Sen. Jay Rockefeller was one of the chamber's most ardent public option supporters. Without a public option, the West Virginia Democrat feared, insurers - fattened by billions of dollars in new government subsidies and a new requirement that most Americans purchase insurance - would run rampant, jacking up prices and padding profits and executive salaries. But Rockefeller and several other Democratic senators also had their eye on a different way to keep insurer profit...
...about the process that people are likely to be debating for years: Did the road to passage really have to be this rocky? The shape of the legislation - and specifically, the fact that there were never going to be 60 votes in the Senate for a government-run public option - has been clear for months. So why did Reid insist upon taking the public option to the Senate floor as part of the initial bill he introduced, making the fight even messier and at times seriously jeopardizing Dems' chances of passing such a landmark bill? (See 10 players in health...
...would give him credit for trying even when the plan ultimately failed, as it did this week. But Reid seemed not to have considered, or cared about, the collateral damage: forcing moderate Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas to cast a procedural vote in favor of the public option that could prove ruinous to their own careers - and to the party's majority...
...Reid, says Daschle, had no choice but to offer the public option. "He was under intense pressure from the House [which has one in its bill] and the liberals in the caucus to at least make the effort." Also, by including the option, Reid gained a valuable bargaining chip - something he could give up in negotiations to win the votes of more conservative members like Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, an independent who is counted as part of the Democratic caucus, and Nebraska's Ben Nelson...
...company has thus far failed to heed calls by British Conservative politicians to fire CEO Richard Brown. Brown has apologized for the inconvenience the interrupted service has caused passengers, but says that sending more trains out to stall on the tracks beneath the channel simply isn't an option. Few clients were thanking him Monday for his caution. (Read: "European Train Travel: Working on the Railroad...